The present invention relates to apparatus for dispensing filament-like fasteners having lockably engageable terminals for use in for example arranging a plurality of goods in a prescribed single set or attaching tags or the like to individual goods. More particularly, it relates to apparatus for locking and thus dispensing self-lockable filament-type fasteners which indivisually comprise lockably engageable socket and inserting part provided at one and the other ends of an interconnecting intermediate filament and which are brought into a locked condition when the inserting part is received in an aperture of the socket.
Self-lockable filament-type fasteners of the mentioned type are well known for example from the U.S. Pat. No. 4,240,183 to Sumimoto et al, and as therein disclosed, they individually comprise a socket and an inserting part formed at one and the other ends of their connecting filament, which are integrally molded from a pastic material.
In use of the fastener, the filament is applied through the prescribed number of articles or wares, or through a price tag or the like and an item of merchandise to which it is intended to attach the price tag or the like, and its is then looped to let the inserting part at one end of the filament be locked in the aperture of the socket at the other end of the filament. In the looped and locked condition, the fastener functions for example to prevent a member or members of goods to be maintained in a single set or group from being dissociated from the set or group.
Today, application of fasteners effected as above by locking together the inserting part and the socket of individual fasteners is not even partly mechanized but is operated only by hand or rather by both hands, and the operation efficiency is therefore extremely low.